News Corp splits amid divorce
A new chapter opened on Friday for Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp with the split of the media-entertainment conglomerate as the 82-year-old goes through a marriage breakup.
While some analysts see the outlook for publishing as bleak, Murdoch said he remains committed to his newspaper roots.
"People are buying fewer papers but they are equally getting their news in many other forms," he said last year.
As his empire was being built through a series of mergers and acquisitions, Murdoch was also going through a series of unions and breakups in his personal life.
Earlier this month, Murdoch filed papers to divorce his third wife Wendi Deng, citing an "irretrievably" broken marriage to a woman 38 years his junior.
Deng was perhaps best known for a 2011 incident when she leaped to defend her husband by striking a pie-wielding protester, prompting headlines calling her a "tiger wife".
The divorce will not affect the way in which the media empire is run as Deng does not have stock or voting rights in News Corp, sources familiar with the company said.
Murdoch will remain in charge of both firms after the split, as chairman and chief executive of 21st Century Fox, and executive chairman of the new News Corp.
His youngest son James, 40, is believed to be the heir apparent to the family empire.
Agence France-Presse
(China Daily 06/29/2013 page6)
